


Feel How You Weaken

by stonefreeak



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 14:37:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9239276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonefreeak/pseuds/stonefreeak
Summary: Her husband hurt her. As Padmé collapses, her thoughts center on what has happened and what will never happen.Guilt, grief and rage.Her babies must live, even if she will not.





	

She can’t breathe. Her husband is using his power to _choke_ her. Where did everything go wrong? How could this happen?

Obi-Wan’s voice calls out.

She falls and she cannot move. Her strength is waning; time is indistinct.

The sound of Obi-Wan and Anakin talking and then… the telltale sound of lightsabers being activated. She wants to _cry_ because this was never supposed to happen.

They were supposed to be happy. She was going to go to Naboo, to the lake country.

She had plans for the nursery. It would be right by the gardens, with glass doors opening to the outside. On warm nights you could open them and let in the fragrance of flowers in full bloom. The walls would be a pale but lush green, soothing and fresh.

Sheer lace curtains framing the doors, rustling in a warm breeze. A rocking chair in the corner where she could sit and look outside, nursing her baby as she watched the birds ascending to the sky.

Anakin was going to leave the Order after the war was over.

Why? Why would he destroy the Republic and help create an Empire? Why would he destroy the Jedi? He marched on the temple and killed them all, even the _younglings_.

She wants to scream. It isn’t _fair_ . How could he _do that_? That’s not the man she fell in love with! That’s not the man she married!

**A planet made of sand.**

**A mother gone missing, taken by the Tusken Raiders.**

**Anakin’s raging grief.**

**“I… I killed them. I killed them all!”**

**...**

**“And not just the men… but the women… and the children too.”**

**“They’re like animals, and I slaughtered them like animals!”**

**...**

**Her own voice, soft and warm, achingly gentle.**

**“To be angry is to be human.”**

No no _no_ . That’s different. That was _different_. But now, struck down by her husband hands, Padmé can’t stop the thoughts that swirl in her mind, the guilt that starts to choke her—so reminiscent of what her husband just did.

‘ _How is it different? Why is it different? Because they weren’t human? Because I didn’t know them? Because they were on a faraway planet I never really planned to return to?_ ’

Anakin killed children once before. She forgave him that time, so why would he think that she wouldn’t forgive him this time?

Time passes. She tries to move, her fingers twitch and she starts to get up, but… Something cold latches on to her very soul. It drains her of energy and she knows with complete clarity that something is trying to kill her.

_No_.

She won’t go down without a fight.

She forgets about the physical world, and focuses instead entirely on the chill, on the Dark that she finds in her soul.

She cages it with the strength of her mind, it takes her entire focus but she forces it to _stop_. She won’t let it have her, not when it would mean the death of her baby.

…

…

…

Labour is harsh and she can no longer hold the Dark at bay. It eats away at her but she won’t give in, not yet.

“Luke...”

Her baby boy. Her eldest child.

“... Leia.”

Her little girl. Youngest of her line.

They’re born, they’re safe. Obi-Wan has her children, she knows they will live, she knows they will be alright. But with this knowledge, she loses the strength to fight the Dark.

She screams—in her mind, her body has weakened too much already—and rages. However, she cannot lose hope, there has to be something…

“Obi-Wan… there… is good in him. I know there is... still...”

There was, there _is_ , good in Anakin. There has to be, otherwise… _Otherwise…_

She fades.

She is one with the Force.


End file.
